Biblioteca Digital

Engineers create, design and build, bringing solutions to problems and transforming the environment for betterment of life. Engineers are responsible for the development of science and technology once they design tools, systems and instruments that make possible the acquisition of knowledge in a vast amount of fields. Engineering is responsible for the deep transformation of human relations in the first decade of the 21st century, changing also education paradigms as well as business. A new era in working environment has started, which characteristics are peculiar due to new communications, mobility and globalization. These aspects lead to the fact that now it is also important to train engineers with tools that enable them to act in a working environment that demands a very flexible and innovative mind in order to be inserted in and to keep up with the work market. Knowledge in Basic Sciences, Basic Sciences of Engineering and Specifics of Engineering are fundamental for the training of an engineer. However, the insertion in labor market sometimes demands some practice or experience that should also be provided by the engineering schools. Taking this into account, the Engineering Education Research Team of COPEC – Science and Education Research Council has designed and is implementing a program for an engineering school which main goal is to prepare engineers for the future work market...

Metabolic engineering refers to the directed improvement of product formation or cellular properties through the modification of specific biochemical reactions or introduction of new ones with the use of recombinant DNA technology. It has been used to investigate and modify intermediary metabolism in a variety of microbial organisms of biotechnological interest. An emerging area of application for metabolic engineering is medicine, in particular the study of metabolic disorders, where analysis and manipulation of metabolic pathways have obvious relevance. Central to metabolic engineering is the notion that metabolism results from the concerted and coordinated activities of biochemical pathways connected through shared intermediates in the form of common reactants, products, and catalysts. According to this "metabolic network" concept, an enhanced understanding of metabolism and cellular function is obtained by considering the component biochemical reactions together, rather than individually. In this light, this thesis work was motivated by the idea that the application of metabolic engineering analysis to biological systems relevant to human disease has the potential to provide valuable insight into the biochemical underpinnings behind metabolic disorders. In the present dissertation...

We aim to develop novel protein antagonists of P-selectin adhesion as anti- inflammatory therapeutics. Blocking P-selectin adhesion is particularly attractive because this adhesion mediates leukocyte rolling which occurs early in the inflammatory cascade before extensive tissue damage caused by the amplification of inflammation by proinflammatory cytokines. Currently, no subnanomolar antagonists of selectin adhesion are available. The low affinity of current antagonists results in the need for frequent administration and large doses in order to obtain inhibition. High affinity antagonists are desirable because they can be administered in smaller amounts thus reducing the risk of harmful side effects and reducing production costs. Our approach for developing high affinity antagonists is to combine error prone PCR and in vivo homologous recombination to mimic in yeast the broad spectrum of mutagenic strategies exploited by B cells such as somatic hypermutation, receptor revision (... CDR replacement), receptor editing (chain shuffling), and amino acid insertions and deletions. Together with yeast surface display and flow cytometric screening (FACS), this approach has been used to effect at least a five order of magnitude affinity improvement in a single chain antibody (scFv) directed against the N-terminal 19 amino acids of P-selectin glycoprotein ligand- 1 (PSGL- 1). Three rounds of engineering were performed after an initial pool of binders was isolated from a non-immune scFv library. Chain shuffling was found to be important for generating an improved mutant in the first round of engineering.; (Cont.) For the final round of engineering...

Perhaps the greatest innovation in engineering in the last fifty years, computer software has changed the way structural engineers conduct nearly every aspect of their daily business. Computer-aided drafting, analysis, and design software are invaluable tools for any structural engineering firm. Given the growth, extensive competition, and demands of the industry, a firm cannot survive if it does not take advantage of the powers and capabilities that modem computer software offer. Computers have drastically altered the way engineers communicate with co-workers, clients, architects, and construction managers, improving the efficiency of the design delivery system and facilitating the conveying of design changes, issues, and concerns between all entities involved in a project. This software has optimized the structural drafting, analysis, and design processes in ways engineers never could have imagined possible half a century ago. These innovations not only add up to major savings in construction costs and increased profits for all parties involved in a project, but also to more accurate designs, quicker design completions, improved organization and sharing of data, and higher productivity within the engineering office.; (cont.) This thesis examines the applications of computer software in the structural engineering industry...

Explorations and optimizations through the genomic space are a daunting undertaking given the complexity and size of the possible search space. To approach this problem, systematic and combinatorial approaches were employed for the engineering of cellular phenotype in Escherichia coli. Initially, a computational method based on global cellular stoichiometry was employed to identify single and multiple gene knockout targets for lycopene production in E. coli. These targets led to substantial increases in lycopene production, but were limited in scope due to the nature of these models. Therefore, these approaches and targets were complemented with combinatorial searches to identify unknown and regulatory targets. When combined, these searches led to further increases of lycopene production and allowed for the visualization of the resulting metabolic landscape. A more exhaustive search was conducted in the background of eight genotypes which resulted in the formulation of the gene knockout search network. This network enables the investigation into how phenotype optimization is biased by search strategy.; (cont.) Collectively, these results demonstrated that despite the complexity and nonlinearity of genotype-phenotype spaces, most of the significant phenotypes were controlled and regulated by a small subset of key "gateway" nodes. Often...

This thesis describes the engineering tasks associated with production of Design Squad, a reality-based television program on WGBH. In Design Squad a client gives two teams of high school students an engineering design task for them to complete over two days of building. In order to facilitate production of this program an extensive amount of engineering preparation work is required. Tasks for each episode include concept brainstorming, prototyping of challenge solutions, material procurement, and on-set mentoring. These development and preparation activities require creative brainstorming, teamwork, and communication across a multi-disciplinary team. The MIT based engineering support team has created methods and guidelines to ensure efficient knowledge generation during prototyping that utilize sample builds, proofs of concept, and sketching. Techniques have also been developed for mentoring and guiding the cast members on set. Additionally, a wiki-based communication, tracking, and documentation tool was created to aid in the development process.; by Benjamin Powers; Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2008.; Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis presents a new modeling framework and research methodology for the study of engineering systems. The thesis begins with a formal conceptualization of Engineering Systems based upon a synthesis of various literatures. Using this conceptualization, a new modeling framework is presented called the Engineering Systems Matrix (ESM). The ESM is an improvement to existing system-level modeling frameworks, such as the Design Structure Matrix (DSM), by providing a dynamic, end-to-end representation of an engineering system. In support of this contribution, a new research methodology is presented called Qualitative Knowledge Construction (QKC). QKC can be thought of as a Bayesian-type approach to grounded theory. The methodology integrates qualitative social science with quantitative methods by developing a procedure for translating textual reports of observations, interview transcripts, system documentation, and figures into coded data represented in the ESM. The thesis develops the ESM framework and the QKC methodology in the context of a real world engineering system, a US Air Force miniature uninhabited air vehicle (MAV) product development system.; by Jason E. Bartolomei.; Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology...

The aim of this thesis is to consider how fundamental engineering principles might best be applied to the design and construction of engineered biological systems. I begin by applying these principles to a key application area of synthetic biology: metabolic engineering. Abstraction is used to compile a desired system function, reprogramming bacterial odor, to devices with human-defined function, then to biological parts, and finally to genetic sequences. Standardization is used to make the process of engineering a multi-component system easier. I then focus on devices that implement digital information processing through transcriptional regulation in Escherichia coli. For simplicity, I limit the discussion to a particular type of device, a transcriptional inverter, although much of the work applies to other devices as well. First, I discuss basic issues in transcriptional inverter design. Identification of key metrics for evaluating the quality of a static device behavior allows informed device design that optimizes digital performance. Second, I address the issue of ensuring that transcriptional devices work in combination by presenting a framework for developing standards for functional composition. The framework relies on additional measures of device performance...

One goal underlying synthetic biology is to develop standard biological parts that can be reliably assembled into devices encoding higher-order functions. Here, I developed a framework for engineering post-translational devices, which are devices whose inner workings are modulated by non-covalent protein interactions and covalent protein modifications. To test the framework, I designed a scaffold for engineering post-translational devices in yeast, the Phospholocator, that can be used to assemble peptide parts in order to produce devices that couple upstream kinase activity to regulated nuclear translocation. I used the Phospholocator to design, build, and characterize a Phospholocator device, the Cdc28-Phospholocator, whose location is regulated by the activity of cyclin-dependent kinase Cdc28. I next engineered and tested a Fus3-Phospholocator device, whose location is regulated by the activity of the mitogen-activated protein kinase Fus3, in order to demonstrate that the Phospholocator scaffold supports the engineering of many post-translational devices. I used the Cdc28-Phospholocator to follow Cdc28 activity levels throughout the yeast cell cycle, thereby illustrating the utility of the Cdc28-Phospholocator as a tool for biological inquiry. To implement more complex functions...

Forward metabolic engineering (FME) is a rational approach to cellular engineering, relying on an understanding of the entire metabolic network to direct perturbations for phenotype improvement. Conversely, inverse metabolic engineering (IME) uses a global, combinatorial approach to identify genetic loci that are important for a given phenotype. These two approaches complement each other in a strain improvement program. FME and IME approaches were applied to poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB)production in Synechocystis PCC6803 [IME] and recombinant E. coli [FME] in this thesis.IME was appropriate for Synechocystis, where metabolic regulation of the native PHB pathway was not well understood. A high throughput screening method was established by developing a staining protocol that quantitatively related nile red fluorescence to PHB content, while maintaining cell viability for both organisms. This was combined with fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) to screen for high PHB mutants. A Synechocystis insertion mutagenesis library was screened to identify gene disruptions that increased PHB. Two gene disruptions in proline biosynthesis and an unknown function were identified and characterized.An analogous IME study in E. coli did not find increased PHB mutants...

This is the second volume prepared by the Naval Postgraduate Schoolﾒs Electrical Engineering Program in 1983. This document was submitted on 1 May 1983 to the Engineering Accreditation Commission located in New York. The document contains the objectives and self-appraisal of the Electrical Engineering Program, list course requirements; provides information relating to the laboratories associated with the Engineering Program and. Also included in this volume is information on the Naval Postgraduate Schoolﾒs student development programs, ethics and professionalism course, course outlines (Appendix A) and faculty information (Appendix B).

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited; According to a 2010 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, major system acquisitions within the Department of Defense (DOD) tend to be behind schedule, over budget, and often fail to deliver at least some of the planned capabilities. One area that can significantly contribute to successful implementation of systems engineering is the regular usage of management software tools and their continued evolution to better meet systems engineering needs. This thesis provides a detailed exploration of four categories of available system engineering management tools: Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), Product Life Cycle Management (PLM), Systems Engineering Environment (SEE), and Project Management software. Each tool has numerous features that support successful systems engineering. However, there does not seem to be a consolidated commercially available tool or system that allows for seamless management of systems engineering projects across all of the process areas. Drawing upon these existing tools and the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) processes, this thesis derives a set of requirements for such a consolidated systems engineering management tool. This research can serve as the starting point for a follow-on effort to develop such a tool.; ; Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific

The issue of the lack of women in the fields of science and engineering has recently received new attention by the scientific and women's studies communities alike. In fields such as Mechanical Engineering there continues to be a marked lack of women, especially when looking at higher levels of academia. One solution that has been suggested is to provide young women with a pre-collegiate introduction to engineering and also to give them opportunities to be in contact with women in the field. The Women's Technology Program (WTP), a summer program for girls who have just finished their junior year of high school, was originally created to help solve this problem in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at MIT. Due to its apparent success in the four years of its existence, it was felt that the development of such a program in the Mechanical Engineering department at MIT might be a worthwhile effort. The WTP in ME will contain an overview of many of the topics of mechanical engineering, with an emphasis on critical thinking and problem solving, two skills that are invaluable to engineers and are rarely taught below the university level.; by Christina Chestnut.; Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology...

For this thesis, I refined and tested a computer-based engineering teaching tool called EDICS. EDICS (Engineering Design Instructional Computer Program) has proven to be a fun and intriguing means of conveying a wide variety of engineering design subjects to undergraduate students. The core audience of EDICS was assumed to be undergraduate engineering students who lacked the practical experience of manipulating common mechanical components and devices. It has been discovered, though, that EDICS is a useful tool for nearly all types of engineering students at many different levels of experience. The testing of EDICS was carried out by having students study either short excerpts from the program or similar subjects covered either in a popular textbook or a booklet, then testing their knowledge retention by subjecting them to a short, written exam. The subjects that were studied were: transmissions, fastening and joining techniques, and engineering drawing and drafting. The results of this evaluation show that in the subjects of transmissions and fastening and joining, students who used EDICS to study performed significantly better than those who studied using paper-based materials. In the subject of engineering drawing and drafting, the students using EDICS scored...

"Discover Mechanical Engineering" (DME) is a student-run Freshman Pre-Orientation Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which, in the time since its inception in 2002, has developed into a popular, professional, and well-organized pre-orientation program MIT. Yet despite its success, it routinely experiences difficulties with respect to personnel and timeframes, both of which continually threaten the well-being of the program. It appears, however, that such difficulties are not a result of the students' motivational level, since all of DME's student volunteers contribute a great deal of time to the program. Rather, the problem may be that DME student leaders (and their supporting volunteers) are attempting to run the program prior to having taken MIT's Product Engineering Process course (also known as 2.009), a required senior-year mechanical engineering course which is expressly designed to teach students how to manage projects similar to DME. This course teaches tools most useful for the management of personnel and of time - the very areas which DME seeks to improve - through the use of Gantt charts, delineation of the project's critical path, and sundry other methods.; (cont.) It is reasonable to believe that bringing a Product Engineering Process methodology to DME would help rectify existing problems...

The Women's Technology Program was created in MIT's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department to expose girls to engineering topics and to encourage them to choose engineering majors in college. For the upcoming launch of a WTP in the mechanical engineering department, a new curriculum is being developed. The objective of this research was to create a capstone design project for the WTP-ME curriculum that sparks high school girls' interest in design and manufacturing. A hovercraft design contest was chosen as the basis for the project because of the range of concepts it encompasses and because the competitive nature of the project would encourage cooperation and motivation among the students. To test the project's feasibility, several hovercrafts were built using different materials and geometries. A list of materials was created and contest rules were constructed based on the results, and one hovercraft design was selected to be used as a template hovercraft for the students.; by Sandie Yang.; Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2006.; Includes bibliographical references (p. 16).

In recent years, problems have emerged in the realm of engineering and engineering education in the United States. Technology literacy is low, there are insufficient numbers of engineering students, and there are misconceptions surrounding the engineering profession. To remedy these problems, WGBH Boston and MIT have created a reality-style engineering-based television program for 9- to 13-year-old children, entitled Design Squad. One episode of the show will challenge the 8 child contestants to build a human-powered waterslide pump, to be used at a community swimming pool. 'Two potential design solutions are proposed for the design challenge: a ball-and-chain pump and a positive-displacement plunger pump. The design process of each solution and an evaluation of each solution's feasibility are presented. Criteria for a successful episode of the show are discussed in relation to the challenge. Prototype experimentation and analysis suggest that the human-powered waterslide challenge will invoke an engaging episode of Design Squad.; by Joel A. Sadder [and] Mika A. Tomczak.; Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2006.; Includes bibliographical references (p. 53).

We explore corporate decisions and their solutions under uncertainty using engineering methods. Corporate decisions tend to be complex; they are interdisciplinary and defy programmable solutions. To address these challenges, we take an engineering approach. Our proposition is that as in an engineering system, corporate problems and their potential solutions deal with the behavior of systems. Since systems can be studied with experiments, we use Design of Experiments (DOE) to understand the behavior of systems within which decisions are made and to estimate the consequences of candidate decisions as scenarios. The experiments are a systematically constructed class of gedanken experiments comparable to "what if' studies, but organized to span the entire space of controllable and uncontrollable options. In any experiment, the quality of data is important. Grounded on the work of scholars, we develop a debiasing process for eliciting data. And consistent with our engineering approach, we consider the composite consisting of the organization, their knowledge, data bases, formal and informal procedures as a measurement system. We then use Gage theory from Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA) to analyze the quality of the measuring composite.; (cont.) To test this engineering approach to decision analysis...

Some of the work contained in this dissertation has been published and presented as below: - B.Hamraz, N.H.M.Caldwell, D.C.Wynn, and P.J.Clarkson, (2013): Requirements-based Development of an Improved Engineering Change Management Method. Journal of Engineering Design, online first, DOI: 10.1080/09544828.2013.834039. - B.Hamraz, N.H.M.Caldwell, and P.J.Clarkson, (2013): A Holistic Framework for Categorisation of Literature in Engineering Change Management. Systems Engineering 16 (4). - B.Hamraz, O.Hisarciklilar, K.Rahmani, D.C.Wynn, V.Thomson, and P.J.Clarkson, (2013): Change Prediction Using Interface Data. Concurrent Engineering 21 (2), pp. 139-154. - B.Hamraz, N.H.M.Caldwell, and P.J.Clarkson, (2012): A Multi-domain Engineering Change Propagation Model to Support Uncertainty Reduction and Risk Management in Design. Journal of Mechanical Design 134 (10), pp. 100905.01-14. - B.Hamraz, N.H.M.Caldwell, and P.J.Clarkson, (2012): A Matrix-calculation-based Algorithm for Numerical Change Propagation Analysis. Transactions on Engineering Management 60 (1), pp. 186-198. - B.Hamraz, N.H.M.Caldwell, and P.J.Clarkson, (2012): FBS Linkage Model ? Towards an Integrated Engineering Change Prediction and Analysis Method. Proceedings of the International Design Conference (DESIGN'10)...

Modeling is a hallmark of the practice of engineering. Through centuries, engineers have used models ranging from informal “back of the envelope” scribbles to formal, verifiable mathematical models. Whether circuit models in electrical engineering, heat-transfer models in mechanical engineering, or queuing theory models in industrial engineering, modeling makes it possible to perform rigorous analysis that is the cornerstone of modern engineering. By considering software development as fundamentally an engineering endeavor, RIT’s software engineering program strives to instill a culture of engineering practice by exposing our students to both formal and informal modeling of software systems throughout the entire curriculum. This paper describes how we have placed modeling in most aspects of our curriculum. The paper also details the specific pedagogy that we use in several courses to teach our students how to create, analyze and implement models of software systems.; Originally published by: Springer - http://www.springerlink.com/content/p25mw252t1596133/?p=e46b23192e3b4798a214c60ad78190b8π=0